It felt good to hit something.

It also hurt really bad.

She had expected the bat to connect with the Sheriff’s temple with a deafening crack. Instead, it was the tinny hum of aluminum and a thud, the sound of a skull fracturing muffled between the thin layers of scalp and the cushion of brain. But the reverberation traveled up the length of the bat and Ash’s arms, her already tense muscles screaming in protest at the sudden shock.

It did not, however, stop her from coming around again, the end of the bat arching up to catch under the officer’s jaw. His teeth clacking together was more the sound she had been looking for, as was the feeling of give as she shattered bone. She hoped he ate through a straw for the rest of his life just like his fucking pet bug.

As he crumpled to the ground like a broken doll, body limp, blood gushing from between broken teeth and torn lips, Ash highly doubted he would live long enough to pop down to the Piggly Wiggly for an Ensure.

The backdoor squealed and Ash braced herself for the rush of reinforcements. But it was Charlie, shoulders sagging and back bent under the weight of backpacks and the two sprayers she was holding, their contents sloshing inside. She took one look and skidded to a stop, eyes taking in the scene.

“Shit.”

Arms shaking, Ash kicked the gun toward Charlie and nudged the fallen officer’s foot, but he didn’t move. Didn’t even moan. Stepping over him, she went to Richie, stooped and cringed. The sheriff had done some serious damage. Orbital socket cracked, nose broken, shattered front teeth. He would not be pretty for a while. But he’d heal.

If they could get out.

“It’s okay, Richie,” she soothed. Leaning forward, she managed to get up under his arm, lifting him to his feet as he made whimpering noises and leaned heavily on her.

“’Umb ’ick ’ock,” he tried, tongue fumbling for words in his broken mouth, blood and drool dribbling onto his stained shirt and pants.

“Can you walk?”

In answer, Richie moaned, managing a staggering line toward Charlie while Ash collected the bat. “At least he gave us a parting gift,” Charlie said, stowing the gun in the back of her shorts.

Ash gestured to the wall of CICADA merchandise. “Want a souvenir?”

“Pfft,” Charlie sputtered. “Pass. Here.” She passed one of the laden backpacks to Ash. “Flashlights, those handheld garden shears, headlamps, water. You get what you wanted?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“Oop ee oo,” Richie whined, throwing a jazz hand.

“I’m sorry, Richie. We’ll get you to a hospital as soon as we can,” she promised.

“Can you carry one of these?” Charlie asked him, holding out the smaller of the jug sprayers. “We’ll give it to the others as soon as we get back.”

A shrug was the only answer they got. Charlie helped him drape the strap over his shoulder.

“Let’s go,” Charlie nodded toward the door. “And I left some gifts of my own outside.”

Ash gestured for her to lead the way, but as they started for the door, both women paused, staring at the walls of VHS tapes surrounding them.. So many screaming women on the covers. . . .

They shared a look.

“Know how every time the girl walks away from ‘the body’ it gets back up?” Charlie asked.

Ash blew out a breath. “Yeah.”

Pivoting, she went back to the Sheriff, squared her hips like a golfer, and took one more swing on the opposite side of his skull. The snap of his neck was audible, blood spraying, teeth flying from his mouth to skitter across the carpeted floor, the only other sound his breath escaping on a last sigh.

“That a girl,” Charlie cheered flatly.

Ash wiped away the bit of scalp on his uniform, hair and meat still clinging to the metal.

* * *

Back outside, they found the ‘gifts’ Charlie had prepared.

“Is this a Molotov cocktail?” Ash whispered as Charlie passed her the bottle.

“As good of one as I could make having no real idea what I was doing, yes. I dumped everything I could find in there on the way out. True bugs, like cicadas, are drawn to light sources. It should offer us some extra cover and, at the very least, fuck this town.”

“’imme at,” Richie blubbered, snatching the bottle from Ash’s hand as he fished his lighter from his pocket. She didn’t protest. If she’d had her face caved in, she’d be in a foul mood too. There was the clicking sound of the lighter being struck, a flame, and Richie held it to the soaked rag. It flared bright and orange, the smell of burning chemical strong in their nostrils. Winding up, Richie tossed the homemade grenade into the video store while Charlie did the same in the hardware store. Already primed, the inside of the hardware store flared with an audible whoosh, fire rushing across the floor and up shelves like it had intent.

Ash guessed it was arson, but there was no way they’d be charged. She’d laugh her ass off once Revelation’s ‘council’ or whatever had their mugshots all over the news and she was serving them with a gazillion dollar class action lawsuit for damages.

They moved as quickly and as quietly as they could back round the corner, halting almost immediately. The streetlights, dark before, now shone all up and down the street and through the park. All of Revelation lit by spotlights. Here and there, Ash could see figures darting to and fro. Probably the survivors the cop had let go as cover.

The chainsaw buzz of the cicada became a roar, dropping down low over the park, chasing those shifting shadows. How many people could that thing consume? More screams came from the dark and Ash began to lose her nerve. “We’re gonna be out in the open.”

“Nothing for it,” Charlie mumbled quietly at her elbow. “We’ve got to get across the street. You smell that?”

Ash did. The fire they’d set was already growing. Smoke began to drift by, tickling Ash’s throat, begging her to cough. Somewhere, glass shattered. Had to be the stores, the heat looking for escape. It has to be now, she thought.

Without warning, she ran forward, into the smoke, cursing inwardly as her shadow fell long in all directions, caught in too many lights. She danced again around cars and the fallen, her only goal the other side of the street. Richie’s and Charlie’s shadows appeared alongside hers, peculiar flowers blooming on asphalt sprinkled with broken glass and shattered plastic from taillights.

The crackling roar preceded the black shadow that came directly from the park, aiming for them. “Down!” Charlie yelled, the three of them dropping around two abandoned vehicles, bumpers kissing. The bug made a low pass and then swept up again, likely trying to keep clear of the smoke already pouring out from under the steel gates and into the night air.

“Christ,” Ash coughed, head up, waiting for the bug to show itself again, but between the smoke and the too-bright streetlights, her eyes were watering. They had to keep going. Better in a group or one at a time? Better to play dead till it passed? She didn’t know.

The cicada made the decision for them, diving so fast and low Charlie barely had a chance to scream before the bug’s legs snagged on her backpack.

It was revolting, its wings moving too fast for Ash’s eyes to follow as it beat back the smoke and tried to gain lift with an unsteady grip on its prey. “Let go of her!” Ash screamed, jumping to her feet and swinging wide with the bat. She clipped a wing along the edge, feeling something more substantial than the wafer-thin membranes. And it was enough of a shock for the creature to slip off the pack, buzzing and sputtering, its rattle angry as it danced back through the air, weaving more to one side, struggling.

Ash reached down and grabbed Charlie up, urging her to her feet. Charlie gave a cry, stumbling along.

“Go, go, go!” Ash shoved her towards a sedan, one rear door open wide as the creature made another sweep of the street. Charlie hurled herself inside and over the backseat leaving streaks of blood that looked black on the gray upholstery. Ash jumped in behind her, pulling the door shut. Charlie was on the floor behind the passenger seat, whimpering as she pulled pieces of red plastic from busted taillights out of her knees, her fingers wet with blood.

“Oh God, where’s Richie!” Ash gasped, twisting her head round and round.

She saw his sprayer next to a Jeep Wrangler, its cage crumpled and broken, tires flat. It looked like it had taken a roll or two, likely trying to drive over the sidewalks. The air bags were deployed, red across one. She hoped the passenger and driver had walked away with little more than a broken nose and whiplash, though she suspected they’d been carried off like so many others.

Squinting, she could just make out a skinny shadow beneath the body of the car, lying flat on the road. Richie. The cicada circled round and round, the smoke hindering its hunt. But it landed on top of the Jeep, those roll bars a perfect perch. Its thorax twitched and rattled, and its red eyes rolled round in its head.

Ash held up her hands, motioning for him to stay still. She hoped he could see her. Stay, she mouthed, over and over. Stay.

He gave a weak thumbs up.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” Charlie groaned, pulling another glittering piece of plastic from her flesh. A stack of unused, drive-thru napkins was on the front seat and Ash grabbed for them so Charlie could sop up some of the blood.

“I’m taking suggestions,” Ash whispered, staying low behind the seat, hoping all the smoke drifting by obscured the bug’s view. “Will it fly higher to avoid the smoke?”

“It should. But it shouldn’t even be to begin with so what do I know. Where is it?”

“It’s—”

But it wasn’t. It was no longer perched atop the Wrangler, though Richie was still and quiet below. Ash licked bone-dry lips, her tongue scratching across their scabbed surface with the sound of scraping sandpaper. Where had it gone? The buzzing was still loud, even while the fire raged behind, sucking oxygen with a roar.

Ash’s breath hitched.

The rear windshield exploded and both girls screamed. Charlie was tangled in a heap on the floor, legs up on the seat, backpack caught behind her. She kicked out and thrashed as the creature tried to fit its bizarre head through the hole.

“GO AWAY!” The cry tore from Ash’s throat and she gave a shallow swing of the bat, her grip choked so high she almost knocked out the side window with the handle. She knocked its skittering legs, pinning one against the edge of the window, glass shards still caught in the frame. The bug squealed and buzzed even louder. Ash bore down, gritting her teeth, hoping its branch-like leg might crack at the joint.

But it was one better. It broke off instead.

The cicada pulled back and smoke poured in through the broken window. Ash inhaled too deep, too fast, throat and lungs burning. It was like she’d taken a drag on her first hundred cigarettes all at once. Coughing and hacking, she reached for Charlie, trying to help her up.

The bug was back, however, with a vengeance. It tore at the remaining glass with its hooked feet, pulling it away in spiderwebbed sheets like peeling an onion back. Ash took up the bat again, holding it over her shoulder and ramming it at whatever part she could reach: feet, legs, an exposed side as it maneuvered.

It exposed the white of its belly as the last of the glass fell away and there was a faint click and then an explosion of light and sound. Beside her, Charlie had the Sheriff’s gun out and was firing out the window. Ash saw at least two bullets impact the bottom of the thorax before the creature buzzed and scrambled off the trunk. Charlie kept firing, the sound deafening Ash till she could only hear a high ringing. Finally, there were no more bullets and Charlie was just depressing the trigger again and again. But the cicada flew off, nonetheless.

Now was their chance.

Ash scrambled for Charlie’s door handle, reaching across her, and shoving her hard. “Come on! Richie!” she screamed as they landed in the road. “Move your ass!”

Richie was already crawling from under the car, hauling the sprayer up and skirting around a shattered hood, slamming the jug of spray into the cracked grill, bouncing right off the hood and only just managing to keep his feet. He kept going.

“He’s gonna make it,” Charlie said, rounding another car.

No, he wasn’t, Ash realized.

The bug was circling again, lower this time. Richie had to have heard and tried to orient himself toward the source of danger with only one good eye. He began priming the pump on the sprayer, ready to release a cascade of poison at the creature if it did come for him. But even in all the commotion, Ash could see it was too easy. The plastic jug holding the liquid had been pierced, the vacuum compromised. Richie might as well have been jerking off for all the good he was doing. Above them, silhouetted against the smoke, the cicada whizzed back and forth, preparing for its next attack.

“Richie! Get down!” she yelled, running toward him, bat in hand.

Finally realizing the futility of his plan, he dropped the plastic container and came barreling back toward Ash. He grabbed her in a hug and her first instinct was to hug him back, to share their terror. It felt almost good.

Until Richie spun her around, arm cranked around her neck. Her hands went to his arm, dropping the bat in surprise.

“Here!” he called, the first clear word she’d heard him speak since the beating she’d saved his ass from! “’Ave ’er!”

“Richie!” Ash choked. Unbelievable. Truly. He was using her as a human shield because she’d dumped his ass.

Okay, that gave him too much credit. He was just a damn coward.

He was also stupid.

Ash wanted to tense up but forced herself to become dead weight and go limp instead. Richie’s slight build and already precarious equilibrium had them falling. Releasing the vice grip she had on his arm, Ash covered her face right before they landed on the street, Richie’s full weight slamming down on top of her.

He scrambled, trying to get up, but she hooked her leg between his and rolled, giving herself wiggle room. Hauling back, she slammed the heel of her hand into his bleeding mouth and nose, scraping her palm on his broken teeth, making him wail.

He scowled with his one good eye, reaching for her throat. “’Oo ’azy ’itz! I⁠—”

The needle-like tip of the cicada’s probiscis popped out of Richie’s mouth, stopping only inches from Ash’s face. Shocked babbles erupted from Richie’s throat and his hands hovered around the probiscis, too afraid to touch it for fear of doing more harm. But Ash could see what Richie could not.

Mandibles, jagged and covered with stiff hairs, gripped the back of Richie’s head on either side. The creature’s face—if she could call it that—was pressed close. A thick stream of hot blood and fluids poured from Richie’s open mouth, some dripping off the end of the probiscis. The cicada had punctured a hole through the back of Richie’s head, straight through his skull. Spindly legs wrapped round his torso and the mandibles closed down. Richie looked at her, pleading, scared. She tried to say his name. She hadn’t wanted this, even after what he’d done.

Richie was pulled backwards and up into the air, like he had been sucked up into a tornado. The death rattle of the creature fading into the black above as it carried Richie away to feast in peace.

Ash scrambled up, breath coming out in ragged sobs and choked screams. She struggled to find her balance with the backpack, but she managed to stay upright as Charlie appeared, tugging her hand.

“Come on.” No platitudes. No questions. They didn’t have time for those things.

Shoving one more trauma down into the pit of her stomach, Ash knelt for the bat and followed Charlie as she disappeared back into the parking lot.